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Authentic Expression: The Missing Piece in Guitar Improvisation · The Steve Stine Podcast

• 0:36
  Steve: Hey, Steve Stine from GuitarZoom Academy here.
• 0:38
  Steve: Thank you so much for joining me.
• 0:39
  Steve: Today we're going to be talking about improvisation beyond scales, Things to think about further down the line than just which scale you're using or what arpeggio or cage system or something like that, which is all good.
• 0:51
  Steve: We need that stuff, no doubt about it.
• 0:53
  Steve: But there's another way of thinking about things that will get you closer to actually creating the music, and so what I like to do is talk to people about two things I always think about.
• 1:02
  Steve: Number one is what I call the guitar brain.
• 1:04
  Steve: So what the guitar brain is is really all of those tools that we think about studying and memorizing and practicing, and all those sorts of things you know, from scales to, again, licks, arpeggios, whatever these things might be, finger exercises, fretboard development, all of those kinds of things, theory, all of that.
• 1:24
  Steve: And again, we need all of these things to some degree.
• 1:28
  Steve: Each person's a little bit different, depending on you.
• 1:31
  Steve: Know what your goals are, what your experience is, what your interests are, are going to, you know, determine which ones of these sorts of things are best, the most important things for you to focus on.
• 1:42
  Steve: One of the biggest things guitar players get bogged down with is just way too much information.
• 1:47
  Steve: They're just practicing.
• 1:49
  Steve: You know they watch videos and they just grab everything and then start trying to practice 383 different things.
• 1:55
  Steve: And again, if it's working for you, great, but if it's not, part of the reason for that is because you're just practicing so much stuff.
• 2:02
  Steve: And first of all, are the pieces actually connecting together?
• 2:05
  Steve: Are they just random things that you're trying to do?
• 2:08
  Steve: And number two, are these pieces, these tools, working together to get you where you want to go, or are they outside the sphere of what you're trying to do?
• 2:19
  Steve: And if you're trying to learn how to play a G and a C and a D chord so you can play, you know, whatever song, but you're working on some sort of string skipping or tapping thing Again, I'm not judging, you can do whatever you want, but you can see that that element isn't directly connected to whatever this thing is, and so sometimes the best thing you can do is optimize that.
• 2:40
  Steve: So if you think about your guitar brain, that's all of these thoughts, all of these skills you're developing physical skills, mental skills, all that kind of stuff To get closer to the realm of musicality.
• 2:53
  Steve: The other thing you want to start practicing is developing what I like to call your music brain, okay, or the creative brain.
• 3:00
  Steve: And so now you're not just thinking about all of these things like oh, I'm going to jam over this backing track, so I need to play this lick because I practiced that last week.
• 3:08
  Steve: Or I have to do this exercise because my teacher told me to do this thing.
• 3:12
  Steve: Or again, I'm not saying it's right or wrong.
• 3:14
  Steve: You might be able to make them fit all the way around, and I think that's awesome, all the way around, and I think that's awesome.
• 3:22
  Steve: But if they're not fitting and it doesn't sound musical, it doesn't feel musical to you.
• 3:23
  Steve: Oftentimes the reason for that is because you're not thinking musically, You're just thinking about the tools, right?
• 3:29
  Steve: So with the music or the creative brain, what you start thinking about is what do I want it to sound like?
• 3:36
  Steve: What kind of responses do I want to make to what I'm hearing?
• 3:40
  Steve: What is the music asking from me?
• 3:42
  Steve: So then I start thinking about things like phrasing, repetition, dynamics.
• 3:49
  Steve: Okay, I like to talk about things like register, like where on the fretboard do I want to start singing, if you will?
• 3:56
  Steve: When this music is playing, what does it make me feel like?
• 3:59
  Steve: Do I want to play, you know really high and you know kind of screechy, or do I want to play a little bit lower and kind of more um, intimate, Like I have to think about these things, not just what scale I'm going to choose or what lick I'm going to play, or how fast I'm going to play or how many notes of that scale I'm going to play.
• 4:16
  Steve: Again, I'm not saying that that's wrong.
• 4:17
  Steve: What I'm saying is, if you never think about things on a musical level or a creative level, you're not going to play things that sound musical and creative.
• 4:26
  Steve: So it's learning to combine these things together.
• 4:29
  Steve: But the problem is is most people don't spend near enough time trying to create on that creative level.
• 4:35
  Steve: So you know you're practicing your exercises and your scales and whatever it might be, songs that you're playing with your band, and again, this is all great.
• 4:41
  Steve: But if you want to get really good at doing things like improvisation, what you have to do is start kind of narrowing down the scope and then refining what you're trying to do.
• 4:53
  Steve: And what I mean by that is, let's say, because I see this all the time, let's say, you're practicing.
• 5:01
  Steve: You know, when you do your fundamental stuff, you're playing an E minor pentatonic or something like that, which is G major pentatonic, like that whole conversation.
• 5:08
  Steve: But every time you go to grab a backing track off of YouTube, you grab some weird jazz thing in the key of E flat or A flat or something, and then you wonder why you're not putting that together.
• 5:19
  Steve: Or you know, when you practice, or even just inherently, you as a musician feel things at a particular tempo.
• 5:26
  Steve: But when you grab your backing tracks, your backing tracks are nowhere near that groove or that feel that feels good to you.
• 5:32
  Steve: So you're grabbing things in the different key.
• 5:35
  Steve: And again, if you're trying to expand your palette, there's nothing wrong with that at all.
• 5:39
  Steve: But if you're trying to develop some sort of confidence, start with what you know and then build around that.
• 5:46
  Steve: So if you're always practicing in the key of E minor, slash, G major that's how you're practicing your scale development, your positions and all that kind of stuff why not find some backing tracks that can support the practice that you're putting in and then find a tempo, find a groove that feels good to you?
• 6:03
  Steve: You know whatever chords you're you're working with, you know maybe it's skill, chord connection or whatever it might be.
• 6:08
  Steve: Again, all of these kinds of things need to come into play, and so when you go to practice, this isn't something that you just do once a week or something.
• 6:16
  Steve: This creative practice becomes something that you do on a daily routine as time permits.
• 6:22
  Steve: If it's something that's really important you to learn how to do that, you've got to stop just putting all of your stock into learning more scales and modes and more arpeggios and whatever, and you have to start actually learning how to sing with the instrument.
• 6:36
  Steve: But it's a different mentality.
• 6:38
  Steve: It's not just playing, it's interacting with the music that's being played.
• 6:42
  Steve: Now you can make choices that are fast or slow, or high or low, or loud or soft, or you know more rock or more.
• 6:49
  Steve: That's all entirely up to you, what feels good to you.
• 6:52
  Steve: So I don't, it doesn't matter to me, it's just does it, does it sound real?
• 6:57
  Steve: That's what we're looking for, and so sometimes the answers aren't just in more content, it's crafting the things that you already have and then figure out what's missing and then start adding those things in.
• 7:09
  Steve: You see, that's how I like to think about getting people to the next level in their playing is not just watch these 15 videos and figure it all out and see if it makes more music, but get assessments of your playing, Like what's actually working and what's not working and what do we need to do to fix that.
• 7:24
  Steve: So start thinking about your you know your guitar brain versus your music brain and what you could do to change that up.
• 7:32
  Steve: Okay, Once you get more comfortable with that, then you can start stepping outside those lines a little bit.
• 7:37
  Steve: Maybe you choose a different key or a different tempo or a different groove, right, or you start adding on a new scale or a different mode or some more licks or whatever.
• 7:46
  Steve: You can keep expanding.
• 7:47
  Steve: But what most people do is they've already tried a bunch of this stuff and they just kind of have a lot of stuff sitting over here.
• 7:54
  Steve: Already tried a bunch of this stuff and they just kind of have a lot of stuff sitting over here, but they have really no idea how to put it together in a musical context.
• 7:58
  Steve: So the more you can practice within that creative space and start learning how to develop these things.
• 8:05
  Steve: So when you get together with other players or jump on stage or whatever it might be, you've already got a platform to work off of.
• 8:11
  Steve: Right, it doesn't always have to be flashy, but it has to be musical, it has to be authentic so an audience can connect to it, and so can you.
• 8:19
  Steve: You can choose to make it more interesting technically, or again, we can use the term flashy.
• 8:25
  Steve: That's a choice of yours, but that has to come secondarily.
• 8:29
  Steve: Once you've established the confidence of the motion of your fretboard, the creative aspect of your fretboard, then you can start making these other smaller decisions on what you want to do specifically to make it more you.
• 8:40
  Steve: You know what I mean.
• 8:41
  Steve: So anyway, hopefully that helps you a little bit.
• 8:43
  Steve: Take care, Stay Positive, keep practicing and I'll talk to you soon, all right.